Actors Theatre of Louisville Bids Farewell to Executive Artistic Director Robert Barry Fleming After Five Transformative Years
Photo Credit: Yero
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Louisville, KY – [January 15, 2025] – Actors Theatre of Louisville (ATL) announces the departure of Executive Artistic Director Robert Barry Fleming, who has led the organization with vision, passion, and innovation since June, 2019. Fleming will be moving on to pursue other creative and artistic opportunities. During their tenure, Fleming has solidified ATL’s reputation as a hub for bold, inclusive, and groundbreaking theatre.
“It has been the privilege, honor, and daily joy of my lifetime to work and learn with and from this extraordinary Actors team. Though the challenges of stewarding a regional theater through a global pandemic and the detrimental comprehensive impact it has had on our industry has been formidable for everyone in our field who care about and are dedicated to the American theatre, I’m nothing less than ‘beyond-my-wildest dreams’ grateful for the wonderful partnerships that have emerged and the sense of community and connecting across difference that has manifested from our collective efforts,” offered Fleming.
As the fifth Artistic Director of ATL, Fleming has profoundly shaped the organization, bringing their multifaceted expertise as an artistic and administrative leader, producer, director, choreographer, performer, teacher, and coach to guide ATL toward numerous significant milestones:
● Launching the Storytelling (r)Evolution: The development of groundbreaking world premieres like I AM DELIVERED’T, Grace, Ohio and Still Ready, which exemplify ATL’s commitment to exploring complex identities and contemporary themes.
● Realizing ATL as a Community Convener: A significant expansion of ATL’s engagement with diverse communities through innovative partnerships with local and national organizations.
● Financial Growth: Strategic alignment of capacity and ambition. Honored with a one million dollar grant for their transformative leadership in the American theater by the Mellon Foundation.
● Transmedia Approach During Pandemic: Faced with the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic shutdown, Fleming pivoted ATL to continue serving the community with VR experiences, radio plays, a video game, a podcast, community conversations, and multiple short and full length films - notably The Breasts of Tiresias which Fleming directed and won Best Animated Short at New Orleans Second Line Film Festival. ● Radical Hospitality: Inspired by the thought leadership of Dr. David Anderson Hooker and Dr. John A. Powell. Fleming initiated an evolution in ATL’s approach that centers radical hospitality and extravagant welcome to create a space of belonging for all.
Mac Thompson, President of the Board of Directors, shared “We are truly grateful for the five and a half years of service that Robert Barry Fleming has dedicated to Actors Theatre of Louisville. Robert furthered and deepened the mission of Actors Theatre of Louisville with bold and exciting artistic programming as well as meaningful community partnerships. They navigated the tremendous challenges of the pandemic shutdown with grace and wisdom, and they have steered Actors Theatre towards a brilliant future. On behalf of the full Board of Directors, I wish Robert all the best in their future pursuits.”
The Board of Directors has reaffirmed its commitment to ATL’s mission of unlocking human potential and building community through theatre by appointing Impact Producer and Co-Director of Artistic Programming Amelia Acosta Powell to Interim Artistic Director and Executive Producer and Co-Director of Artistic Programming Emily Tarquin to Interim Managing Director. Acosta Powell joined ATL in 2021 and most recently directed Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins. Tarquin joined ATL in 2016 and most recently directed Won’t you be my May-bor? As interim leaders, they will collaborate with the staff to continue the exciting upcoming programming without interruption.
About Actors Theatre of Louisville:
Actors Theatre of Louisville, located in the heart of downtown Louisville, is one of America’s most consistently innovative nonprofit professional theatre companies. Founded in 1964, Actors Theatre serves to unlock human potential, build community, and enrich quality of life by engaging people in theatre that reflects the wonder and complexity of our time.
Media Contact:
Emily Scorgie NEAT The Agency emily@neattheagency.com
Marissa Wolf of Portland Center Stage in Ore., left, Robert Barry Fleming of Actors Theatre of Louisville, Ky., and Jacob Padrón of Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn. Portland Center Stage; Actors Theatre of Louisville; Long Wharf Theatre:
"Largely white, affluent, older."
That's Jacob Padrón's description of the traditional audience for Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn., where he's artistic director. But that profile applies to other established regional theaters as well. "That was the demographic, that continues to be the demographic, but that's changing," he said.
Long Wharf is one of three theaters that's received a $1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. The other two are Portland Center Stage in Portland, Ore., and Actors Theatre of Louisville in Louisville, Ky. All three are trying to reach new audiences in different ways — but that's not why they're getting these grants, said Stephanie Ybarra, program officer for arts and culture at the Mellon Foundation.
Ybarra said the grant is for the people running them: Padrón in New Haven, Robert Barry Fleming in Louisville and Marissa Wolf in Portland. She said all three have proven track records "in the ways that they advocate for their theaters, their communities, and the ways that they use their platforms for local artists and the national conversation."
For theater to thrive, Ybarra said, individual theaters must have a "wholesale reimagining of the relationship . . . to their immediate communities." And she believes these leaders understand that.
'Wholesale reimagining' takes courageous leadership
The state of regional theaters is a mixed bag, due to the lingering effects of the pandemic, inflation, and changing audience behavior. Some theaters are thriving. Others are holding steady or struggling. A report on the state of the industry in 2022 from Theatre Communications Group focused on the need of theaters to innovate.
And that's something these three theaters, spread across the country, have in common.
Portland Center Stage is a new play powerhouse; they've developed 29 world premieres and focus on bringing diverse perspectives to the stage. Artistic director Marissa Wolf said the new funds are essential – not only supporting transformational change, but "inspiring long-term investment from our whole community."
Long Wharf recently left its home of nearly 60 years, saving the company about $500,000 a year, said Padrón. Now that the theater is itinerant, he said, "the entire city is now our stage."
As examples, he pointed to a recent production of Arthur Miller's A View From The Bridge in a boathouse and the theater's work with artist Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi, who curates the Long Wharf's virtual Black Trans Women At The Center: An Evening of Short Plays. Lady Dane is scheduled to perform in person at the New Haven Pride Center in November.
Actors Theatre has also been going through a transition. For years, it was home to the Humana Festival of New American Plays, a prestigious event that brought top talent from New York and around the world, but didn't necessarily serve local, diverse audiences. That festival is gone.
Instead, Actors Theatre is focused on programs that Fleming said support "health and wellness, social equity and art and how those things intersect."
He said by telling new kinds of stories, including ones focused on the local South Asian diaspora, are in Spanish, or are "rural stories of Appalachia versus urban stories," new audiences have grown almost 40 percent.
This story was edited by Jennifer Vanasco.
Robert Barry Fleming Named Artistic Director of Actors Theatre of Louisville
The native Kentuckian will begin his tenure at the theatre company in June.
by Elizabeth Greenfield
LOUISVILLE: Actors Theatre of Louisville has named Robert Barry Fleming as its new artistic director. Fleming, who currently serves as associate artistic director of Cleveland Play House, will begin his tenure at Actors Theatre on June 1. He succeeds Les Waters in the role.
“I’m thrilled that Robert will be joining the talented and dedicated team at Actors Theatre,” said managing director Kevin E. Moore in a statement. “He brings such robust and multifaceted artistic experience, as well as a deep belief in theatre as a space for all. I’m personally inspired by his vision for organizational collaboration that allows for transparency and transformation in equal measure. I very much look forward to our partnership as Actors Theatre enters its 56th season.”
Before working at Cleveland Play House, Fleming served as the director of artistic programming at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. Fleming will be the fifth leader of Actors Theatre of Louisville, and will bring his varied experience as an artistic leader, producer, director, choreographer, performer, teacher, and coach to the theatre. Fleming is also a native Kentuckian raised in the state capitol of Frankfort, about an hour from Actors Theatre in downtown Louisville.
“To come home and lead this singular organization with its distinguished legacy of artistic excellence is humbling and simply mind-blowing,” said Fleming in a statement. “I look forward to being a part of the collaborative, radically humanizing and inclusive artistic work at Actors Theatre of Louisville.”
DOORS OPEN FOR WOMEN AND PEOPLE OF COLOR AT TOP RANKS OF AMERICAN THEATER - March 19, 2019
New artistic directors, clockwise from top left: Nataki Garrett, Robert Barry Fleming, Stephanie Ybarra, Jacob G. Padrón, Hana Sharif and Maria Manuela Goyanes.
Credit Clockwise from top left: Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times; Andrew Spear for The New York Times; Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times
By Michael Paulson For full article click here
The Cleveland Play House Allen Theater
NEXT TO NORMAL at Tantrum Theater
NEXT TO NORMAL @ Tantrum Theatre with Kelsey Venter, Riley McFarland, and Travis Kent (Photo Credit: Dan Winters)
Riley McFarland, Travis Kent, and Marc delaCruz. Photo Credit: Dan Winters
Clockwise Kesey Venter, Bradley McKelvey-Askin, Riley McFarland, Travis Kent, Marc delaCruz. Photo Credit: Dan Winters
Tyler Tanner and Bradley McKelvey-Askin. Photo Credit: Dan Winters
Marc delaCruz and Riley McFarland. Photo Credit: Dan Winters
Riley McFarland, Kelsey Venter and Travis Kent. Photo Credit: Dan Winters
Bradley McKelvey-Askin and Kelsey Venter. Photo Credit: Dan Winters
THE NOLAN WILLIAMS PROJECT, May 19th @ 5pm
THE NOLAN WILLIAMS PROJECT
SATURDAY, MAY 19 @ 5PM, ALLEN THEATER. READING OF A NEW MUSICAL.
ORIGINAL STORY, MUSIC, LYRICS BY NOLAN WILLIAMS JR. AND BOOK BY NIKKOLE SALTER
DIRECTED BY ROBERT BARRY FLEMING
